When playing music and in particular when improvising on an existing piece of music or an existing sequence of chords, i.e. when creatively generating harmonically and consonantly sounding melodies, while the melody or the sequence of chords is played in real time, a fast and efficient input of pitches is indispensable. Such a fast and efficient input of pitches, however, generally needs a learning phase of several years on a certain instrument, for example a piano, a guitar or another musical instrument, in order to generate harmonically and/or consonantly sounding pitches (tones) at a sufficient speed. As, apart from knowing how to play a musical instrument in general, a sufficient basic musical education is also required, many people are excluded who lack the theoretical musical background knowledge or have no sufficient experience in playing a musical instrument.
Especially at the beginning of such a learning phase of several years it is very difficult for the learner to understand the theoretical musical backgrounds which are indispensable, in addition to merely knowing how to play the musical instrument, for playing music at a later time. In particular, the “classical musical instruments”, i.e., for example, the piano, the guitar, the violin, the trumpet and the saxophone, are hardly aimed at conveying theoretical musical backgrounds but are rather oriented towards an experienced musician.
It is in particular this complexity of playing the instrument and the lack of theoretic musical knowledge which leads to the fact that only a few people have an understanding of making music, improvising and composing, as in particular the “first steps” are especially difficult. This in particular holds true for children, for whom a playful approach to music would be suitable for introducing them to music. Apart from that, it is in particular difficult for disabled people to make music or improvise, as they are frequently not able to play certain musical instruments due to their handicap.
In literature, may teaching aids and means for learning and/or finding chords, harmonies and keys are known. These are often templates, discs or other objects, in particular mechanically connected, shiftable or rotatable templates on which connections regarding music theory are illustrated. Such learning aids and means are, for example, described in the following documents DE 8005260 U1, DE 8902959 U1, DE 3744255 A1, U.S. Pat. No. 5,709,552, DE 3690188 T1, US 2002/0178896 A1, DE 4002361 A1, DE 19831409 A1, DE 19859303 A1, DE 29801154 U1 and DE 20301012 U1. In general, on one of the discs or the corresponding objects a sequence of pitches is applied which in general either corresponds to the chromatic scale consisting of a sequence of twelve semitones and thus all available pitches of an equal temperament, or to the circle of fifths, wherein a pitch interval of two adjacent pitches is a fifth (for example C-G or F-C). DE 8005260 shows a device for finding chords, harmonies and keys with an arrangement in an interval of a third.
The utility model DE 29512911 U1 describes a teaching and learning aid for a synthesis and analysis of connections regarding music theory with several different templates and at least twelve gaming pieces provided with designations of pitches.
The European patent EP 0452347 B1 refers to a universal operating unit for an electronic musical instrument comprising a number of note selectors, each of which provides a note selection signal when a note is selected and a note deselection signal with a deminishment of a note, note turn-on devices coupled to the number of note selectors for providing note-designating information associated with each note selector and for providing a note turn-on signal triggered by the note selection signal which includes the corresponding note-designating information, a memory means for storing the note-designating information provided as triggered by the note selection signal, means coupled to the note turn-on device for changing the note-designating information and note turn-off devices coupled to the number of note selectors and to the memory means for providing a note turn-off signal triggered by the note deselection signal which includes the note-designating information stored when providing the note selection signal. In particular, these documents describe an operating unit for an electronic musical instrument which comprises an operating unit reproduced according to a fingerboard of a piano.
The patent DE 4216349 C2 describes an electronic musical instrument having a melody and an accompaniment keyboard. The musical instrument described has a melody keyboard whose melody keys include switches including two switching stages, wherein those pitches corresponding to the white keys are associated with the first switching stages and those pitches corresponding to the black keys of a keyboard are associated with the second switching stages, and an accompaniment keyboard comprising accompaniment keys which, when operated, may call an automatic chord accompaniment, wherein the accompaniment keys are respectively implemented as switches having at least two switching stages which have different associated accompaniment chords. An operation of the described electronic musical instrument does not need to have available the knowledge of musical notation, but requires, due to the described modeling according to a fingerboard, an operator who is educated in music theory, as in particular certain combinations of individual pitches and chords, which are necessitated in particular for pedagogical purposes, are obvious.
The patent DE 2857808 C3 describes an electronic musical instrument combined with an electronic clock. The invention relates to an electronic musical instrument, wherein via input and storage means any pitch sequences and pieces of music may be input and retrieved again. The described electronic musical instrument thus enables only an input with a subsequent storage of a pitch sequence and a reproduction of the stored pitch sequence via a pitch generator circuit to reproduce the stored sequence of pitches in the form of a sequential acoustic presentation. It is in particular disadvantageous with regard to the musical instrument described, that the input and/or the “programming” of the pitch sequence takes place via a 10-key pad, extended by several additional keys. In particular, the electronic musical instrument described also requires a certain minimum of theoretical musical knowledge, as otherwise a programming of the musical instrument will hardly be realizable.
The European patent EP 0834167 B1 refers to a virtual musical instrument with a new input device. In particular, the above-mentioned patent application refers to a virtual musical instrument having a portable accessory of a type which is to be brought in contact with a musical instrument in order to play this instrument, wherein the mentioned portable accessory comprises a switch which generates an activation signal as a reaction to a person holding the mentioned portable accessory causing the mentioned portable accessory to hit another object. The mentioned activation signal is received by a digital processor, which in turn generates a control signal which causes a synthesizer to generate a note which is represented by a selected note data structure. In particular, the patent application describes a virtual musical instrument, wherein the mentioned portable accessory is a guitar plectrum and wherein a user may only make pitches from within a predetermined amount of pitches sound via the synthesizer.
The European patent EP 0632427 B1 and the translation of this European patent DE 69418776 T2 relates to a method and a device for inputting musical data. More specifically, the mentioned patent relates to a musical data input device including an input recording means for recording a hand-written input on it, a position detection means for detecting a position on the input recording means where the hand-written input is performed to obtain pitch data representative of a pitch of a musical note, an input detection means for detecting the hand-written input performed on the input recording means, wherein the input detection means comprises a means for detecting the number of pushing events performed on the input recording means or for detecting a time period in which the input recording means is pushed, or for detecting the intensity of pressure which is exerted on the input recording means during the hand-written input, or comprises a number detection means to detect a number written onto the input recording means, or a line detection means to detect the length of a line which is drawn onto the input recording means, a time designation means for designating time data representative of the length of a musical pitch, on the basis of the detected number of pushing events or the detected time period or the detected intensity of pushing events or the detected number or the detected length of a line detected by the input detection device, and a musical pitch generation means for detecting musical pitch data on the basis of pitch level data obtained from the position detection means and the time data obtained from the time designation means. In particular, the mentioned patent application describes a musical data input device having an LCD unit (LCD=liquid crystal display) and a touch pad arranged on the same, via which, with the help of a pen, pitches may be inserted into a pitch system. The described musical data input device thus relates to people having a sufficiently high knowledge of connections regarding music theory.
The patent application U.S. Pat. No. 5,415,071 relates to a method an a device for generating relationships between musical pitches. Here, an arrangement of offset lines or rows of symbols is described, wherein each symbol represents a musical note. Each line includes a repeating series of twelve symbols which forms a musical series of semitones which is also known as the chromatic scale. Here, each line is offset with regard to the adjacent lines so that groups of symbols which represent the same musical relationship, i.e., for example, intervals, scales, chords, etc., form the same visually recognizable configurations, like, for example, diagonal configurations or vertical configurations at certain locations in the arrangement. In one embodiment, such a device which includes such an arrangement may be used as a learning aid, wherein the learning aid comprises two overlapping components which may be shifted against one another. Apart from that, the patent application describes an arrangement of the contact area of a keyboard and/or a claviature of a musical instrument with a claviature or a fingerboard of a musical string instrument which are arranged in accordance with the arrangement. The patent application thus describes a claviature having keys arranged in the form of concentric circles.